GIS Implementation at Jordan Department of Lands & Survey

by Mahmoud Amer, Director of Computer and Information Center, Department of Lands and Survey, Amman, Jordan.

| Abstract Of The Paper & The Profile of The Speaker | Speaker Index | Paper Title Index |

1- INTRODUCTION

1-1- Department of Lands & Survey

The Jordan Department of Lands and Survey (DLS) was established in 1927 as the governmental agency responsible for the management and control of all aspects of land ownership. These include: registration of land property rights; settlement of land ownership disputes; conducting field survey work to delineate property boundaries; demarcation of land properties; development of cadastral maps that document the location, shape and size of land properties; and the archiving of all legal documents related to land ownership.

The cadastral system is based upon two main instruments: The Land Register and the set of cadastral maps. The Register identifies the owner of each land property and provides a reference to the property's location within the set of cadastral maps. It also includes a reference that links it to the chain of transaction and legal documents associated with it. On the other hand, the cadastral maps provide a graphical description of the land, its location, boundary, and area.

DLS main offices in Amman maintain a centralized copy of the Land Registers and Cadastral Maps for the whole country. However, to facilitate land transaction processing, the Department opened branch Land Registration Offices distributed among the major cities, towns, and urban centers. At present, there are 31 such registration offices, each maintaining its own local copy of the Land Register.

Over the past 69 years of operation, the volume of records maintained by the DLS has seen tremendous growth. An equally impressive growth rate has occurred in the volume of land transactions. Currently, DLS maintains records on 812,000 land parcels, laid out on 23,000 cadastral map sheets, and associated with 2,285,000 ownership's owned by 96,500 land owners. The DLS processes approximately 15,000 transactions each year and collects not less than 100,000,000 US dollars annually as revenues.

1-2- DLS Functions

The Department of Lands and Survey is the official name of the government organization entrusted in maintaining cadastral records and performing surveys for the whole Kingdom of Jordan. It was established in 1927. DLS employs over 1400 staff, and its jurisdiction extends to cover all areas of Jordan. The most important responsibilities of the DLS include:

_ Performing comprehensive land-surveys of the Kingdom, and performing all operations related to map update and production.

_ Establishing and maintaining the fourth and fifth order triangulation networks that are based upon the national triangulation network of the first, second, and third orders.

_ Performing transactions for registering non-transferable funds and specifying and charging the corresponding fees.

_ Administering state domain lands through appropriation, leasing, authorization, and designation.

_ Logging and documenting realty ownership information.

_ Establishing and maintaining a land information system (LIS) as a nucleus for the National Information System.

_ Performing studies, research, and statistical analyses related to real-estate activities.

_ Organizing the survey profession and the real-estate brokers.

_ Contributing to the support and development of the tax system related to lands.

Assisting in developing regions and developing plans for land management.

_ Representing Jordan in the local, regional, and international organizations concerned with cadastral surveys, land information systems, and real-estate activities.
1-3- DLS Structure

The DLS performs these responsibilities through several offices located throughout the Kingdom, the most important of which are:

_ The central headquarters in Amman which is considered the center for all the administrative, financial, technical, and registration activities. The responsibilities of the central headquarters are executed through the directorates mentioned below, which are in turn composed of divisions:

_ Settlement and Surveying.
_ Land Registration Directorates.
_ Computer and Information Center.
_ Technical Services.
_ Photography and Archiving.
_ Registration Affairs.
_ Government Property.
_ Administrative and Financial Affairs.
_ Administrative Development & Training.
_ Legal Affairs.
_ Internal Monitoring and Auditing.
_ Public Relations.
_ Land value Assessment Committee.

_ Land Surveying and settlement Groups operate in various locations in Jordan on demand, and responsible for the land survey fixing of owners rights.

_ Land Registration Directorates are responsible for the execution of all types of registration transactions all over the Kingdom, and are located in all main cities and towns of Jordan.

2- DLS COMPUTERIZATION PROJECTS

DLS is the only authority responsible for providing cadastral information (maps & registers) to public or private users. This information is compulsory for managementi development scheme. Thus, the DLS occupies a central position around which the other governmental agencies (municipalities, utility organizations,...) collect their specific information to set up their own programs.

The Department of Lands and Survey cadastral database is used as basis for all development projects by a number of ministries in Jordan as well as by all municipalities in Jordan. Examples include Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Ministry of Public Works, Jordan Water Authority, Municipality of Greater Amman, and others. So all these organizations could benefit from the existence of read-to-use digital cadastral data. These organizations could also enrich this data by adding their own data sets on top of it resulting in what so called a multi-purpose cadastral database that serves planners and decision makers.

Well aware of its national role, the DLS has already started the modernization of its production techniques through national projects aiming at providing automated Information System on parcels and owners. Furthermore, a Geographic Information System (GIS) is now being installed at the DLS and all of the owner registers are now stored in digital forms.

Since 1979 the Jordan Department of Lands and Survey (DLS) was engaged successfully in a series of projects toward the modernization of its cadastre and land register. Main goal of these projects are shown in appendix A-i.

2-1- DIGITAL CADASTRAL MAPPING

DLS started utilizing electronic computer technology since 1979. This is to control and integrate the increasing number of cadastral maps of different standards and scales. This new computer based solution was used for:

_ Building coordinate database for all types of points. This includes national trig points and traverse points, in addition to the mass number of parcel boundary points. This database sets the nucleus for every cadastral activity in Jordan.
_ Building Parcel shape database together with other related technical information about the parcel.
_ Production of digital cadastral maps in different scales and formats.

2-2- COMPUTERIZED LAND OWNERSHIP INFORMATION SYSTEM

By the mid 1980's, DLS management fully realized that the solution for the ever increasing data management problems lies in the use of computer based methods. Computer systems with their powerful data storage facilities, together with the use of advanced relational database management system (RDBMS) software, provided a clear answer to the department's requirements for processing ownership data. However, the best solution for dealing with the growing volume of cadastral maps, produced and maintained by the department for the whole country, was not as evident and easy to decide.

Accordingly, in 1987 DLS acquired computer hardware and RDBMS software, and immediately started a large scale project to convert all of its land ownership data records to digital form and store it in the computer database. At the same time it commenced to study the various alternatives that were proposed as a solution for automating operations on the department's cadastral maps. This new system is used for:

_Processing queries, reports and statistics based on any item which was originally documented on land records. This include parcel data, land owners and ownership, land registration transactions and mortgages.
_ Land expropriation management.
_ State property management.

2-3- GIS BASED LAND INFORMATION SYSTEM

For the computerization of DLS mapping operations, a choice had to be made whether to employ CAD or GIS techniques. It was soon realized that the GIS approach was superior because GIS software has the built-in functionality that provides a tight link between map representations of land parcels and the corresponding ownership and property transaction records in the database.

Another advantage for adopting a GIS solution was that it directly complies with a national plan to develop a GIS-based Land Information System (LIS) for Jordan. DLS could then provide the cadastral layer for this system without major conversion or manipulation of its in-house data structures.

Among the various GIS software products available in the market at that time, DLS found that the ARC/INFO GIS software from ESRI provided the best capabilities for its requirements. ARC/INFO's reputation as the leading GIS software product worldwide, its open system architecture that gives the user a wide range of choices regarding computer hardware and database management system products, its rich support of geographic transformation and data conversion routines, its macro language facility that would enable DLS to develop its own custom applications, and the availability of Arabic language support have all been important factors in the DLS decision to choose ARC/INFO. Moreover, the Royal Jordanian Geographic Center (RJGC), the agency that produces topographic maps for the country, were already using ARC/INFO, and compatibility with RJGC map data formats was yet another factor in the DLS decision in 1988 to purchase ARC/INFO.

DLS first acquired ARC/INFO software in 1989. A special GIS core unit was formed within the Computer and Information Center at DLS Headquarters in Amman. After an initial period of training and familiarization with the software, the staff in the GIS unit started a major effort to design and develop GIS custom applications covering all transactions and operations related to cadastral maps.

In these applications, extensive use was made of the Aljographi Arabic Language Supplement for ARC/INFO, as Jordan Government regulations require that all government documents, including cadastral maps, have to be in Arabic. The Arabic support for ARC/INFO's AML forms and menus was successfully applied to develop Arabic graphical user interfaces (GUI's) for the end GIS operators of the system.

2-4- CONVERSION OF HARD COPY CADASTRAL MAPS TO DIGITAL GIS DATABASE

In parallel with the process of application development, the GIS staff started to convert the hard copy cadastral map sheets to digital ARC/INFO coverage's. Parcel reshaping transaction processing require full cover of digital maps for all surveyed/registered parcels and available in computer formats. It was soon realized that because of the large volume of these sources map sheets (around 23,000), more resources were required for this conversion activity, and that the availability and completeness of digital data representing the DLS cadastral maps is critical to the successful operation of the new GIS-based operation.

The complete set of these 23,000 digital cadastral maps will establish the full base of the urban layer for the National GIS of Jordan.

As a result, a large scale project to accelerate the conversion of the remaining 16,000 hard copy map sheets was started in 1995. Optical scanning, together with specialized raster-to-vector conversion software that operates in batch mode, were used for this purpose. This conversion operation utilized 45 workstations (RISC-based) in addition to a number of scanners, plotters, and printers. More than 60 operators and specialists are employed in this task.

The time limit for this project is five years, its initial cost was 900,000 US dollars, and its annual running cost reaches an amount of 200,000 Us dollars. 5000 hard copy maps were converted, quality controlled and stored in the national cadastral database in the first year.

By finishing this project successfully, DLS expects a long list of benefits. Most important ones are:

_Stop the damaging process of the hard copy maps due to the daily manually processed transaction and services which requires to deal with the map physically.
_ Secure and protect ownership rights by backing up the map data easily and flexibly.
_ Prevent non-controlled update of hard copy maps which tolerates human fraud and mistakes.
_ Set a new era of computer based transactions rather than the current semi-manual one.
_ Enable DLS to start its decentralization process.
_ DLS becomes an important National center of information, since all the public utility centers and municipalities need it urgently.
_ Guarantee the fast and accurate services to the public.
_ Make it possible to enhance the quality and contents of the cadastral maps by using the digital copy for boundary fixing and processing parcellation transactions.
Opens new horizons for private sector to innovate new business based on this new digital database.
_ It is a pre-requisite for implementing the new Modernization project.

2-5- MODERNIZATION OF LANDS AND SURVEY DEPARTMENT

The most recent project at DLS addresses, among other issues, the implementation of the new GIS-based system at the 31 DLS Land Registration offices distributed around the country. It is at these offices that land and property related transactions for the public are handled and processed.

The lack to adequate facilities in the past had been causing delays in completing these transactions. Operations affecting cadastral maps had to be transferred to the Computer and Information Center at DLS Headquarters, which acted as a centralized service facility for the land registration offices.

The new project aims at providing distributed computer and GIS facilities that allows transactions at each of 31 land registration offices to be processed locally, thus enhancing the speed and accuracy of the operations, as well as providing a faster and better services for the public.

Land registration transactions at remote Land Registry Directorates (LRDs) of the Department of Lands and Survey (DLS) are currently being executed manually using paper documents and registers. These transactions then are mailed together with special forms to the headquarters (HQ) to be entered and processed using computer facilities to update the land ownership database, that serves other important activities.

This elongated manual procedure leads to:

_ Land transactions unnecessarily require extensive procedures due to lack of up-to-date digital data at these LRDs.
_ Manual procedure are pruned to errors.
_ Final documents may have illegible script.
_ One hard copy up-to-date register in LRD can be used only by one user at a time, whereas a computer based system allows access to multiple users.
_ Requires filling forms and subsequent re-entry of data at HQ, with decremental consequences in time and accuracy.
_ Evaluations for the same property by different employees become non-standard and un-coordinated.
_Due to slow data flow, a two-stage evaluation process is conducted. This results to delays in collecting public dues, as well as being a nuisance to landowners.
_ There is only one original up-to-date map in the HQ. This is required for use on a daily basis by staff at the LRD.
_Transaction files being lost or misplaced when being transferred from LRD to HQ or vice versa.

Modernization Project of Department of Lands and Survey intends to expand the usage of computer facilities in order to improve the efficiency and quality of its services to the community. This could be accomplished by establishing a computerized on-line land registry transactions processing system for all registration directorates and training of local government staff.

At the department level, this project will satisfy many objectives. Most important of them are:

_ Provide efficient and fast transactional services to the community.
_ Automation of registration procedures.
_ Production of error free high quality documents.
_ Automated documentation of transactions.
_ Direct update of land-ownership record at the moment of transaction execution.
_ Introduce additional hardware and software necessary to satisfy the needs of other organizations via electronic facilities, and insure that all data are stored in digital form, and being used for services, production and planning.
_ More personnel at various levels has been recruited and adequately trained in related subjects and applications.

At the country level, most important objectives of this project are:

_ Certainty of ownership. The ability to investigate land records will necessitate the formal identification and recognition of the ownership of the land.
_ Security of tenure, by saving an additional copy of the land registers and cadastral maps.
_ Reduction in land disputes, by the capability to check any corresponding information related to the disputed parcel.
_ Improved conveyancing by reducing costs and delays in transferring property rights.
_ Encouragement of the land market by introducing fast, cheap, secure and effective system for recording and transferring land transactions.
_ Monitoring of the land market and controlling land transactions and ownership.
_ Successful land reform through the permanent availability of information regarding who owns what rights in what land.
_ Better management of state domain lands. This gives a rise to improved revenue collection from the land which it leases gives for rent or authorizes.
_ Support for land taxation. Improvements in the cadastral system lead to great efficiency in tax collection and the consequential greater amount of tax recovered.
_Improvements in physical planning. Land registration systems may be used to support physical planning in both the urban and rural sectors. Better land administration should lead to greater efficiency in local government.

The project first 3-year phase was planned to start at some pilot LRDs. The criteria that was applied to select these first pilot LRDs were:

_ Annual work load at LRD.
_ LRD location and its distance from the HQ.
_ Availability and quality of communication lines between DLS Computer Center at HQ and the LRD.
_ Availability of an up-to-date data to cover all LRD computerization requirements, without the need for data conversion at LRD itself.
_ Existing government policies in accordance with DLS policy.

Four LRDs were chosen to allow smooth, fast and easy monitoring and evaluation of the various components of the project and will be considered as pilot LRDs. They are Amman and North Amman Land Registry Directorates in the middle region of Jordan as well as Irbid and Ramtha Land Registry Directorates in the northern region.

3- WHY DLS ADOPTED GIS SOLUTION

It was clear that DLS plays an important role in the Jordanian economy and it's development. This is accomplished by providing the public treasury with direct annual revenues of more than one hundred million Dollars as real estates fees, and not directly through the following tasks:

_ Documenting and safeguarding the ownership rights encourages the investment in the construction sector as for housing and leasing purposes.
_ Improvement of lands settlement and surveying for new developing areas prevents population migration to big cities and provide the treasury with extra taxes on the new real estates.
_ Publishing statistics about real estate different activities and it's orientations will enhance the real estate market.

The effective role of DLS in building a Geographical Information System/ Land Information System contributes in many ways in the development by providing fast and accurate information on real estates and land owners, for both decision makers and large base of private users, especially for agricultural, constructional and industrial purposes.

It is evident that all the known phenomena or threats to the Jordanian citizen are very narrowly related to land. We all need land to live on, to build our shelters on and to extract our food from.

Land cannot always be treated like any other commodity be it very significant and thus valuable. In addition to its pure economic value, it often has serious social and implications.

Governments should demonstrate their commitment to providing an adequate supply of land in order to meet the ever-increasing needs by design and implementation of land policies. These land policies must provide that for all kinds of uses. There should be, within the context of the scarcity of land, sufficient amounts of land available which is suitably located and provided with adequate infrastructure, both balanced against environmental requirements, at reasonable costs and endowed with security of clearly defined tenure. All this should also be done at a rate and scale to keep pace with growing demands.

For the effectuation or realization of the designed land policy, various instruments and tools are necessary they include:

_ Land information system (GIS/LIS).
_ Land tenure and land registration.
_ Regional and municipal planning.
_ Valuation and taxation.
_ Land acquisition and delivery.
_ Institutional components such as coordination and cooperation, organization, financing systems, legislation information- communication, training, research, consultancy.

These tools play more or less an essential role in the light of the usual stages in development activities including :

_ Insight into the actual, present land or property use.
_ Planning of the future use.
_ Implementation of the planned future use.
_ Management and monitoring of this implemented use.

All these land management activities are strong interrelated, so institutionalized coordination and cooperation among all parties usually from various disciplines are necessary and should be developed or improved.

One of the land management components is obviously the collecting, processing and supplying of information on the land, and all that attached to it. This information is the basis for problem identification, decision making and the implementation of these decisions and is derived from cartographic or descriptive media. This land management component usually indicated as geographic or land information related to a fixed area on Earth. A special kind of geographic or land information is that which deals with land tenure, land use and land distribution. A system handling this information, called cadastre, is also the basis for many parcel- oriented information systems and activities (multipurpose cadastre).

Cadastre can be defined as methodically arranged public inventory of data of all parcels within a certain country or district based on a survey of their boundaries. Such properties are systematically identified by means of some designation. The outlines or boundaries of the parcels and the parcel identifier are normally shown on large-scale maps which, together with registers may show for each separate property the legal rights and restrictions, size and value.

This broad definition of cadastre incorporates component of land registration, land registration being, the recording of rights in land through deeds or titles. Such a cadastral land information system, in which registration and cadastre (both in the narrow sense) have to complement each other, must answer the questions "who", "how", "where" and "how much".
From the foregoing, it can be seen that such a system in principle consists of two basic parts:

_ A cartographic part consisting of large-scale (based on a survey, including aerial photographs) which show the division into parcels of an area, along appropriate parcel identifiers.
_ A descriptive part containing registers which record legal facts (deeds) or legal consequences (titles) and other physical or abstract attributes concerning the parcels depicted on the map.

Land registration and cadastre are important components of the concept of land information systems. "Land" is a word with many meanings. It suggests different things to different people, depending upon their outlook and their interests. To the economist for example, it is a resource for economic production and development. To many others, it is simply the space for human activity as indicated in the many forms of land use.

Land in relation to land registration and cadastre, and in general to land information systems to which category land registration and cadastre belong, concerns not only abstract or thematic attributes (legal status, value, tax data) but also physical, spatial or topographic ones (location, dimensions, area, use).

In a land-recording system, data concerning land tenure play an essential role. The concept of land tenure, can, in this context, be defined as "the act, right, manner or term of holding a landed property" or as "the nature of legal estate in land". If land tenure is related to the broad field of land use, it is more than the "man-land" relationship. In that connection, it can be defined as the institutionalized relationship of people involved in the use of land and the distribution of its products.

Every well-organized form of human society will define rights on the land. There are strong ties with the fundament of social and political structures and religious beliefs. Being able or not to exercise rights on the land can evoke deep emotions and often plays a vital role the individual's feeling concerning the possibilities of participation in society. It is also a strong factor in decisions to invest labor and/or capital in the land.

The merits of having a cadastral information system can be related to the individual or citizen, on the one hand, and the government or society, on the other.

To the individual or citizen, the merits result from four effects of a cadastre which is authoritative, complete and gives guarantees:

_ The documented evidence of land ownership, which a cadastre provides, supplies security, reduces or eliminates the risk of eviction and thus enhances the incentive to invest in the land or real estate.
_ This legal security affects the availability of resources for financial investment by increasing the possibility of mortgage-based loans.
_ Dealing in land becomes easier, cheaper, faster and safer. Access to land is consequent)y improved.
_ Increased legal security will result in a decrease of title and boundary disputes and related litigation's, which saves costs for both government and citizen and promotes good relations between neighbours.

The influence of these four effects of cadastre on investments is clear, which in turn gives higher out-put or benefit from the land or real estate. This again results in higher income, higher value and ultimately in the improvement of the economy, expressed in a growth of the gross national product.

For the government the cadastral system enables the government to establish an efficient and equitable system for justified levying of land or property tax. Levying this tax requires information on location, size and ownership or stewardship of the land or property, which can be supplied by a cadastre, to ensure that the tax is levied on the right persons and organizations and in justified amounts.
Land tax can have several functions such

_ It raises funds for the government for all kinds of (development) purposes.
_ It can encourage owners of underutilized land to develop this land, especially in urban areas. If for example, the effective tax on underutilized land is increased, owners will be encouraged to develop their land in order to derive the highest return on their capital investment.
_ It can, especially in the urban fringe, discourage land speculation. If the land tax is increased, the carrying costs of holding underutilized land would increase. Thus land held for speculation will be placed on the market. More land on the market will also result in lower land prices. Thus land tax can make the access to land for those in need easier and cheaper.

For activities concerned with the development of land in relation to land reform, land consolidation or land readjustment, the cadastral data provide an inventory of the existing land uses and can be used for determining the desired future situation and its implementation and management.

For the government, a mechanism becomes available to control whether transactions meet the requirements of planning, spatial management, the allowed maximum land per owner (land ceiling), maximum sales price or the restrictions of land ownership by foreigners. A country-wide recording system makes it possible for a government to determine the amounts of private, communal and state land.

Also a useful tool is created for the execution of a multitude of other governmental tasks. There is a tendency to make the cadastral system provide services for proper governmental management of the environment, the challenge of at least the 1990s. On micro or parcel level, data which are relevant for the environment can be processed and represented on maps or in lists. It. is thus also possible to determine the sources of pollution and the liable parties.

The collected basic data of the cadastral map can also serve as basis for other large-scale maps, which will in the longer term result in considerable savings of time and costs.

A cadastral system can be the basis for the concept of extensive GIS/LIS. For example, the parcel identifier can serve as the key for the integration and coupling of several kinds of land data systems. The cadastral system enhances its multipurpose function by providing base map data or integrating key data. With the aid of GIS technology, it becomes possible for the government to:

3-1- Control The Development

_ Perform rapidly any ownership inquiries: there should not be any waste of time in the search of owner(s) for a given parcels(s).
_ Locate any ownership units.
_ Identify owner(s) and / or occupant(s) of a parcel, building or flat.
_ Prepare the zoning for developing areas.
_ Apply the zoning regulation on the ground.
_ Provide as quickly as possible the utilities/ services for the public, including the speeding up in delivery of building licenses, in establishing the utility networks,...
_ Speed up the release of any cadastral information.

3-2- Improve Fiscal Valuation

_ A correct - more scientific - establishment of fiscal Rate.
_ A rapid valuation of developing Areas in terms of fiscal income(s).
_ As a result, the recovery of transaction & service taxes/fees.

4- TECHNICAL APPROACH

The final objective of these projects being the fast consultation, by different users, of graphic & alphanumeric data, the following questions have to be answered:

_ Who will be the end users?
_ What will be the content of the data base?

How will the data collection, the data management and the data updating be carried out?

4-1- End Users

In order to be efficient, the information system shall be accessible to all departments/ agencies dealing with the management and the development of the area, either through terminals tied with a main system, or through different computerized equipment for which maximum compatibility shall be planned.

The two main users of such a system are certainly the DLS and the Municipalities, for which the consultation of this data represents a daily necessity.

The Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Water &
Irrigation, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Transportation &
Telecommunication Authority as well as other utility organizations
shall also have access to some of these data.

4-2- Data Base Content

As already mentioned, the cadastral data is constrained for any consultation, therefore this information shall constitute the basic layer of the data base. But this data shall be tied up with the topographic data in terms of coordinates (JTM system) and in terms of harmonization between the planimetric features (hedges, fences, walls, roads,...) and the cadastral limits. Thus, the basic layers of the data base shall include:

_ Planimetry (mostly, all visible features).
_ Altimetery (Contour lines, spot heights).
_ Trigonometric network (base of the cadastral survey).
_ Cadastral boundaries.
_ Ownership.

Upon this basic information, shall then be added:

_ Building and flat description.
_ Land use.

At last, the following information can be added:

_ Network information (under the responsibility of each agency in charge).
_ Vegetation (green spaces, sports grounds, cultivation,...)

This final national multi-purpose cadastral database shall be:

_ It shall include the Land Ownership Information System.
_ It shall include planning information.
_ It shall be precise, reliable, up-to-date.
_ It shall link maps and registers.
_ It shall be quickly available for users.

4-3- Data Collection

There are two ways to collect the graphic data: either by direct (land) survey or by photogrammetric means.

The land survey (using modern methods such as total stations) is quite suitable for small (medium) local surveys.

For large areas, the photogrammetric technology leads to cheaper and more homogeneous results. The progress of this method in the last twenty years are such that results can now be considered as precise enough for cadastral purposes.

It is therefore recommended to use photogrammetric means which offer the supplementary advantage to re-coordinate the existing cadastral points into the national geodetic system.

4-4- Data Management & Access

All the above data shall be managed by a system which shall:

_ Allow fast access to any information.
_ Be extendible - in terms of hardware & software - to more users and more peripherals.
_ Be flexible enough to permit the development of specific application programs.
_ Offer user friendliness and reliability.
_ This system shall also be progressively accessible to all end users with certain rules and levels of confidentiality (to be progressively defined by the authorities upon submission of reports and propositions from the DLS).
_ Compatible computers and software shall be installed at the other user offices.

4-5- Data Updating

It is strongly recommended that each department/ agency be responsible for the day-to-day updating of its own data, for the benefit of all.

5- NATIONAL DIMENSION

The proper carrying out of this national project requires the cooperation of all concerned departments/ agencies, and more particularly of:

The DLS to produce cadastral maps which are used as basic documents by other departments/ agencies. and to collect, update and manage the owner registers. Furthermore, the DLS already has an up-to-date digital land-ownership and cadastral Information System and owns a GIS.

The RJGC which is in charge of aerial photography, aerial triangulation and photogrammetric plotting. This Center shall commit itself to delivering in the specified time the products described in the Terms of References.

The Municipalities as well as the utility agencies, which will undertake, at a second stage, the input of their own data into this national information system. They all shall accept the principle of exchange of information and compatible computerized systems.

In order to ease this necessary cooperation between different organizations, it seem suitable that an Evaluation Committee be officially created at the very beginning of this project. This Committee should be chaired by one of the most influential and authorized people in Jordan (HRH Prince Hassan is the most suitable), as executive agent, and each end user should be represented. The Committee shall:

_ Define and be submitted the respective commitments of all participating departments/ agencies.
_ Periodically - or whenever necessary - verify and evaluate the flow of the project.
_ Control the progresses of the project.
_ Solve any problems.

To assist this Committee for technical decisions, a Technical Adviser will be appointed for the duration of the Project. The tasks of this adviser will be:

_ To prepare all technical reports.
_ To control and report about the execution of the project.
_ To maintain the technical liaisons between the different users.

In the mean time DLS went further step into achieving the national GIS by actively producing the National Geographic Data Dictionary (NGIDD). This dictionary aims at setting standards for the national map production and creating a national Spatial Database with public access to all government institutions.

The impacts of this NGIDD on the national level are many, most important of which are

_ Reduced duplication of effort. Maps and data created by one agency are often used by other agencies for a variety of purposes. failure to update the source data or maps in a coordinated manner results in the data becoming inconsistent over time. A loss of data integrity between various sources results in conflicting information and lack of confidence in the reliability of the information. The NGIDD will resolve this problem by integrating all maps and data into a single shared database. data maintenance responsibilities will be clearly defined and any changes made to shared database will provide all other users with the same information.

_ Improved coordination between agencies. The NGIDD will facilitate sharing of data and maps between agencies through the shared database. This will allow the different agencies to coordinate better their activities related to land development process.

_ Enhanced technological capabilities. The NGIDD will make new and improved analytical capabilities available to the various departments. The NGIS will introduce new geoprocessing techniques for solving problems that are currently not available nor practical using conventional methods. This results in better decision making and allow more time to be devoted for analysis of data than to its collection.

6- SPECIAL CONSIDERATIONS

There are a lot of obstacles in implementing GIS at DLS in Jordan, which might be found to apply to similar projects in other developing countries. They should take them seriously in consideration. Most important of which are the following:

At the national level:

_ Lack of a national steering committee to monitor, evaluate and control the plans, operation and cooperation between government agencies. This leads to independent incompatible multiple GIS systems among these organizations. Moreover, most of these institutions either never heard about GIS and do not have any plans for the future. Or the worst case that un-awared and inexperienced institutions purchase the computer hardware and any GIS product without planning how to start. Many government agencies even do no know that more than 80% of GIS is the data itself.

_ Lack of proper legislation's to support and assist the adoption of new procedures. This include the process of converting old documents to digital formats. Setting new application forms and issuing new computerized documents.

_ Lack of unique social security identification numbers for each individual. This leads to existence of multiple name sets for the same land lord in different parcel ownership's. Moreover it leads to having different owners with the same names as owners of parcels that they do not own. This leads to loss of credibility in information systems. Off course this problem exists in manual systems but its impact is not experienced due to lack of indexing power of computer systems.

At the departmental level:

_ In many cases there is pressure to generate quick results and sure short-term profits. This emphasis on short run projects focuses the organization away from innovation, which often requires long term processes.

_ The conventional organization is not built either to handle or to encourage innovation, or to assist and give incentives to creativity within the organization. In fact the opposite is true . The traditional organizational structure tends to provide a central brake on innovation.
_ Interpersonal and interdepartmental political struggles that are native to many organizations severely limit the organization's ability to reorganize itself to apply the innovation or to get the long term interdepartmental support and cooperation it requires.

At the technical level:

_ Existence of so called "MASHA" ownership's. This means that parcel is owned by large number of owners, so that any individual owner shares in a tiny unusable piece of land. This leads to having a land that no owner have the right to invest or sell or split. Moreover the number of owners increases dramatically due to multiple transfer of inheritance transactions.

_ Poor quality source documents and the existence of many old standards, regulations and procedures that contradict setting new scientifically approached standards and regulations.

Recommendations:

_ An Evaluation steering committee to be officially created at the very beginning of any national GIS project. The Committee should be chaired by one of the most influential and authorized people in country.

_ The juridical system should be flexible enough to allow and support the adoption of new technologies and applications.

_ Appropriate training in the new technology specially in GIS and information systems for both management and professional workers. For the management level It should demonstrate the rule and benefits of such systems in today's work, comparing them with the old traditional methods.

_ Criticism must be delayed until after the original idea has at least been developed into a clearer, more comprehensive concept.

_ The organizational climate must be modified to allow mistakes and to encourage the taking of calculated risks. If every mistake is considered a catastrophe then there is no chance for creative thinking and innovation .

_ Start-up projects must be allocated special management time and effort to give them the best chance of success.

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